Anyone contemplating a new computer purchase (for personal use or business) is confronted with new (and confusing) hardware choices. Intel and AMD have done their best to differentiate the x86 architecture as much as possible while retaining compatibility between the two CPUs, but the differences between the two are growing. One key differentiator is hyperthreading; Intel does it, AMD does not. This article explains what that really means, with particular attention to the way different server OSes take advantage (or don't). Plenty of meaty tech stuff.

it all depends on the programming of the app. most apps only recently are starting to really take advantage of mutli threading and multi core (even though the have been out for a lonnnnng time now).

We need to find ways to more easily program more efficient applications, most programs are written the way they are because it was easiest to write it that way and not because it was the most resource efficient or optimized. Though, in the last few years, there have been some pretty big big releases in the compilers I use (including Intel's) that have made things much easier to code to take advantage of the hardware in a way that it should be.